Wikipedia overtaking major news sites Traffic to the multilingual network of sites has grown 154 percent over the past year. September 6, 2005: 5:21 PM EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Wikipedia, which has surged this year to become the most popular reference site on the Web, is fast overtaking several major news sites as the place where people swarm for context on breaking events. Traffic to the multilingual network of sites has grown 154 percent over the past year, according to research firm Hitwise. At current growth rates, it is set to overtake The New York Times on the Web, the Drudge Report and other news sites. But the rising status of the site as the Web's intellectual demilitarized zone, the favored place people look for background on an issue or to settle a polemical dispute, also poses challenges for the volunteer ethic that gave it rise. "We are growing from a cheerful small town where everyone waves off their front porch to the subway of New York City where everyone rushes by," said Jimmy Wales, the founder of the volunteer encyclopedia. "How do you preserve the culture that has worked so well?" p>

I just went over to view the Rick Santorum article on Wikipedia and it was quite well done.

I was referring to the article "Santorum" which is now a disambiguation page. Go to the history and look at the original article. That article was the one debated for a hideously long time.

My point was not that the article finally turned into a disambiguation page. My point was that the comments of an unknown homosexual activist were given more weight in debate than a combination of Fox News, various pundits and columnist, and many Google hits.

You are obviously caught up in the Wiki love. I lost that a long time ago, and not for no reason. Good luck to you.

Any sustaining society has to have a moral code rooted in truth. The deeper the rooting and the stronger the roots themselves the longer the society shall last.

Islamic society has lasted for about a millenium and a half. Hindu society has laster far longer than that. By your reasoning, both societies must be based on some rather potent truths. And I would have to agree, actually--although I suspect you didn't mean to include either as an example of a "moral code rooted in truth," or as examples of societies based on "absolute Truths."

52
posted on 09/11/2005 1:28:26 PM PDT
by sourcery
("Compelling State Interest" is the refuge of judicial activist traitors against the Constitution)

One could argue that the differences are mostly due to the fact that Free Republic is far more influential than is DU, has a longer history, more contributors, a wider audience, is far more effective, and makes and has made more news (both good and bad.) And one reason FR makes more news is that it irritates the MSM far more than does DU. And none of that has anything to do with any Wikipedia-specific bias.

55
posted on 09/11/2005 1:47:53 PM PDT
by sourcery
("Compelling State Interest" is the refuge of judicial activist traitors against the Constitution)

I use Wikipedia for research on technical issues, not for research on political issues.

Good point. I've never seen bias, but I've never looked up anything that brushed against an ideological bone of contention.

For science and engineering, medicine, technology, factual(non spinworthy) history -- things like that -- it's the best site on the web, hands down. The articles are thorough and up-to-the-minute, and the links they provide go very often to original sources, you'll usually do much better to check Wikipedia before you try to extract something content rich from Google's search results.

It does my heart good to see so many people working together for free to produce something really, really good and useful for everyone to use. I use the search tool in Firefox to get results from Wikipedia, it's very handy!

Incidentally, I just checked the FR entry in Wikipedia, and it looked factual and accurate to me. Do some of us want it to be a flattering fiction before we call it "unbiased?"

Yes, I would include both societies as having some founding in absolute truths. I also note that Hinduism is understood by those who understand it deeper in history and spiritual depth as a religion of One G-d, that G-d having many aspects. The trouble is that many hold it or view it as having multiple gods.

Yes, I would include both societies as having some founding in absolute truths.

A society either evolves so that it is based on truth ("stuff that works in practice,") or else it dies. Same goes for a species. And I submit that the same is true of Wikipedia--although Wikipedia is still extremely young compared even to the United States, let alone to the Hindus.

Any free society has an "invisible hand" that sometimes engages in "creative destruction." The process is not always pretty, and does not always provide good outcomes for all concerned, and occasionally produces a bad result for almost everyone. Sometimes, societies evolve in bad ways, and abandon the truths they had once discovered and embraced.

63
posted on 09/11/2005 2:11:11 PM PDT
by sourcery
("Compelling State Interest" is the refuge of judicial activist traitors against the Constitution)

I used Wiki to educate myself on the French and British monarchies. I thought the articles were fantastic. I also did some research on the cingulate cortices there. They were all first rate, I thought.

65
posted on 09/11/2005 2:22:54 PM PDT
by PianoMan
(and now back to practicing)

I love Wikipedia. I use it regularly. Sometimes I'll go to look up one thing, then a few hours later I have to "go back" dozens of pages to get back to whatever I was looking up in the first place (often having lost interest in the original topic by then). I think it's fascinating and fun to get "lost" there. I haven't noticed a liberal bias. As far as I can tell, subjects of controversy usually have a neutrality warning, and you can click to read discussions of a disputed topic's opposing views if you care to. I give it two thumbs up.

Do some of us want it to be a flattering fiction before we call it "unbiased?"

I wrote hundreds of articles over there so I have some experience with the community.

My primary example is that the term "Santorum" was put in. It was coined by a homosexual activist DJ in San Francisco and had no national exposure. That definition remains in a truncated, somewhat less vile and obscene way. But it still exists.

Islamosfacism on the other hand has been used by conservative columnists, has been broadcast on national news programs, and gets tons of Google hits. Yet that article was turned into a redirect to the article [Neofascism and religion] which has no reference to the term or really much of anything about Islam in it. The Islamofascism article was derided as being unworthy of an encyclopedia article, racist, and offensive and it now no longer exists. Yeah, but an article that some unknown guy made up that equated Senator Rick Santorum with an aspect of homosexual sex WAS worthy.

Why the difference? Because the people who have the influence on Wikipedia do not like Senator Santorum and do want to be politically correct about Islam. Thats why, and its the only possible reason why the double standard. How the article is debated and what due process it gets depends on its content.

In August 2004 Jerome Corsi, co-author of the controversial and influential book Unfit for Command, apologized in the national media for racist, homophobic, and anti-Islam comments, as well as slurs made against liberal political figures, that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc." The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America, a liberal website [1].

How was this "outing" possible? I also recall that Buckhead was outed.

Dead wrong. "If tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, it is both standing and fallen, and in every allowable state in between, each in proportion to its calculated likelihood." Dada Physics and it's confidently mystified victims! How many more pages of scientific publication, how many more textbook pages, how much more grant money will we waste on charlatans taking polite turns at the game of baffling us and eachother with their bullsh!t?

Yes, and one could counterargue that the old media still remains the dominant source of contextualization, vastly overpowering both FR and DU combined, and is clearly biased to the left (*particularly* in terms of omission), and this could arguably create an environment in which both participant contributions to articles, and referee decisions about "NPOV" and "common opinion" and so on regarding them, are likewise subject to long-standing built-in bias.

In which case, it's not actually a "Wikipedia-specific" bias, but simply yet another example of the general case today caused by about two generations of increasingly one-sided mass media contextualization.

In short, not that Wikipedia is particularly biased to the left compared to everybody else, but that it's pretty much as biased to the left as *anything* created by those who grew up under the mass media's slant usually is.

Also, my opinion is based upon my experiences with both forums, and the significant difference I see in sheer blatant nastiness and viciousness and so forth between the two. FR is subject to more than its share of petty schoolyard attacks and gross bigotry, especially where homosexuality is concerned, but DU seems to just *thrive* on the stuff and both produce and consume it gleefully in mass quantities, with a much lower signal-to-noise ratio in terms of sober, reasoned, courteous, and insightful commentary.

[shrug] It seems to be that the older I get, the less impressed I am by people's cleverness in saying nasty, vicious things about other people -- and yes, [points at the recent Kerry/Katrina thread], my own included.

I believe FR has a significantly better record on this than DU does. Yet of their respective Wikipedia FR entries, only the FR one makes a particular point of noting this aspect.

So that's the other part of what I'm talking about when I say "slight bias (of omission) favoring the left."

Systematically, TTBOMK, Wikipedia's critical path failure lies in its process of defining its standards of "general knowledge" and "common understanding" and so forth. This is a well-known problem with reference works, and so far we do not appear to have developed any methods of resolving it that even begin to approach the (relative) success of establishing an authoritative editing board -- which Wikipedia *deliberately* lacks.

So I am not by any means arguing that there is a inherent bias to every Wikipedia article in existence. Or that Wikipedia is bad and wrong. My basic point is only that the standards of the Wikipedia referees are questionable, and particularly vulnerable when it comes their application in terms of the definition of "common knowledge" about a subject, and that this, fundamentally, is likely to be a large part of why I observe a slight bias of omission favoring the left WRT the comparison of the articles about FR and DU.

In summary: leftists generally tend to get more of a pass for their bad behavior than their opponents do, and the Wikipedia entries for FR and DU reflect this.

Because the people who have the influence on Wikipedia do not like Senator Santorum and do want to be politically correct about Islam.

Maybe, but, like I said before, Wikipedia is not the place I go for editorial content on current events. I also noticed at the bottom of the FR page there was a link to a site that parodies DU. If you want to tit-for-tat every little thing that paints R's and D's in a bad light, it could get tedious. There may be bias one way in one spot, in another way in another spot.

Also, I note from reading the Santorum entry that this word was selected by the American Dialect Society as the most outrageous new word of 2004, and that extensive Google bombing was done in a coordinated effort to introduce the new definition to the public, these two significant events make it worthy of an entry. But I notice that it doesn't have it's own page, it is a subentry under the entry for the somewhat influential blog of the man who coined the term. His primary claim to fame seems to be coinage of "two sex-related neologisms," one of which was "santorum"(I won't say what it means). Since the word is apparently his greatest accomplishment, it's mention and definition are relevant to an article about his blog.

There might be some bias, but if I were editing a worldwide, mul;tilingual encyclopedia, I would be as hesitant to include "islamofascist" as I would to include "baptofascist" or "christofascist." The only purpose would be propaganda against a religion during a time when(rightly or otherwise) this classic motivational propaganda technique is being used by a major political party in a major nation during a time of war.

In brief: failure to validate propaganda for its own sake does not demonstrate bias to me, it demonstrates responsibility and discretion.

Make it, like the santorum entry, a relevant part of an article about something objective, and it will probably be mentioned in its proper perspective under the appropriate topic, as was the word "santorum."

BTW: thank you for whatever work you did on Wikipedia. For PC bias, read Encarta.

Betcha there's lots of statements in lots of Wikipedia articles that the DUers find objectionable.

In my experience, those don't last quite as long as those on the other side. The community tends to give more leeway to articles equating Senator Santorum to details of homosexual sex than conservative terms. I watched the debates on those two and know what went on.

The only purpose would be propaganda against a religion during a time when(rightly or otherwise) this classic motivational propaganda technique is being used by a major political party in a major nation during a time of war.

No the purpose would be to point out that the word is in widespread use by certain people and factions. Your definition above is worthy content for such an article, but not a reason for keeping it out. I point out the Santorum article due to the double standard, not necessarily the content. If you want to keep the vile content of Santorum then you must keep Islamofascism. If you want to delete Santorum then you must want to delete Islamofascism. Pick one or the other reasoning and apply it to both. Unfortunately, the process on Wikipedia tends toward keeping Santorum, and deleting Islamosfascism. That was my complaint since that double-standard applied in nearly any controversial debate I saw.

I saw the same people arguing for inclusion of Santorum who were arguing against Islamofascism using the exact opposite arguments. Their justification was based on content, not on overarching principles of inclusivity or standards.

I saw the same people arguing for inclusion of Santorum who were arguing against Islamofascism using the exact opposite arguments.

Well, if it's like that, then I guess I can understand how you could get frustrated. As The Beev has pointed out we're all biased toward our own POV. The article about the guy that made up the new definition of the word "santorum" seemed to me as if he had written it himself.

"Though Savage encourages sexual experimentation, he does not encourage carelessness. He frequently makes use of his position  that of a columnist with a large and loyal audience  to spread AIDS awareness and to promote safe sex."

To my thinking, the idea that promoting safe sex is a way to paint yourself a goody-good is a stupefied lefty poser meme. So, I can see some bias there, yes.

But I still think it's the best first stop when looking up something noncontroversial, like a medical term or an electrical device or a mountain range or a species of animal. You get a good overview of the topic and some very content-rich related links.

i don't see the bias but i suspect that people here have drunk as much freeper koolaid as they accuse DUs of drinking (maybe not quite as much).

When I edited on Wikipedia I took Neutral POV very seriously. I rewrote parts of the Bill Clinton article because they were rightward leaning at one point. That makes me a hero and no debate at all, but if I rewrote left leaning pieces toward NPOV it raised a hornet's nest.

That is experience, and I argued for quite a while, but after a time it just gets to be a pain in the rear and I gave it up for good.

I personally have come to like Fred Bauder's concept of Sympathetic Point Of View. At first it was weird, but it makes sense after I messed with Wikinfo for a while. No arguments over content on Wikinfo really. If you have an alternate view, just write an alternate article.

But I still think it's the best first stop when looking up something noncontroversial, like a medical term or an electrical device or a mountain range or a species of animal. You get a good overview of the topic and some very content-rich related links.

Yeah, I use it to look up stuff on planets or assorted trivia for use in things that don't really have an important requirement for accuracy. As an everyday reference, but not necessarily a highly accurate one. Its good enough for most stuff.

The problem is current events and political items. I wouldn't go to Wikipedia for that any more than I would go to CBS for my news. The problem is that many people do.

The manipulation of online polls by Free Republic has not been without controversy. The practice involves making a post directing members to vote en masse in an online poll, particularly those on television network or newspaper websites, with the intended goal of significantly affecting the final outcome. Known on the Free Republic as "freeping" a poll, the practice is not unique to the Free Republic forums and is employed by many other activist websites of all political stripes.

I was unaware that FR was the only or primary website biasing the outcome of online polls.

The leftists do it every hour to news articles and photos on Yahoo.

Here are some confessed examples of DUping/DUmping and even ISLAMming of polls.

Post #1 "Should We Report Freepers Whenever they try "Freeping" polls? Why should we let Freepers vote up to 10 times on the same poll. We should report "Freeps" to the webmasters of the sites conducting the polls. I remember a few months ago we got a poll shut down because it was being Freeped."

Post #2 "Sure, why not... And yes we should continue DUing polls. There is a need to help people from making stupid mistakes and if a poll result might influence even one person from supporting these idiots in charge then I have no qualms with it."

Here is an MSNBC poll that was ISLAMmed yet there was no outing of this scampaign to push the numbers:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seriously, everone go to this website Milia sent and vote for the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. I just went and voted and apparently, Alhumdullilah the most votes are for the Prophet (PBUH) right now, at 20,352. Second place is Jesus, with 5,026. So we're way ahead but the more the better. I also want to point out a very important thing. Many of you will think that we don't need to worry about some stupid vote to prove or show anyone that Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him is really "Number One". Agreed. However, stop and think for a minute that the amount of people around the world that are influenced by these same magazines, programs, and surveys will also think that "Hey, how did this person win? What's so special about them...etc etc". So the idea is that this is also a way, (a big way), to attract people's attention to Islam and to what the religion is all about, rather than them being bogged down by stereotypes they hear from the media, etc. So please go and vote at this website:

If Mr. Choudhary's name seems familiar, it is because he was one of the 3 Missouri college students stopped about a suspected terrorist threat made in Georgia (these were the kids stopped in Florida on the toll road).

Seems that I found this evidence of ISLAMming polls when I googled his name the day that story broke.

Updated: 5:27 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2004 Editor's Note: This week, the online version of the Newsweek poll received an unusually high rate of response, with the clear majority of participants casting uniform votes. For these reasons, we believe the poll is being intentionally manipulated. In addition, we received an e-mail alert suggesting that the campaign is being coordinated by at least one special-interest group.

Could it have been the same people who were biasing the other side of the poll?

Free Republic in the national spotlight

Free Republic in the national spotlight In August 2004 Jerome Corsi, co-author of the controversial and influential book Unfit for Command, apologized in the national media for racist, homophobic, and anti-Islam comments, as well as slurs made against liberal political figures, that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc." The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America, a liberal website [1]. Concerning the remarks, Corsi said, "I don't stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody," and, "...the politically incorrect humor I posted on this site is evidently not funny to everyone. Detractors should have interviewed my dog. No matter how I frame a comment, "Chico" has yet to laugh." Subsequently, John O'Neill, the book's other co-author, attempted to distance himself from Corsi and attempted to downplay Corsi's involvement in the writing of the book.

Free Republic also made news during "Rathergate", the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of allegedly forged documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign. Nineteen minutes after its broadcast began, Free Republic poster TankerKC questioned the documents on-line, stating they were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF." Another poster, Buckhead (who himself received national media attention), made an on-line observation that the documents were in a proportionally spaced font, and stated, "these documents are forgeries," less than four hours after CBS broke the story. By the following morning, the discussion at Free Republic quickly spread to the Internet blog Power Line, and eventually to the Drudge Report and the Associated Press. (disputed  see talk page)

Does this seem like a fair assessment of what goes on here? "Alledgedly forged"??? Is there still any doubt????

Would you want family and friends to use this to judge where you spend your online hours?

Heh. Thank you, weegee; I missed that -- at the DU article, the closest comparable entry I can find is:

"Activism

DUers are active in US politics in many ways. Sometimes DUers in different parts of the country meet at DU gatherings in certain cities. DUers have also been known to attend political protests and rallies, volunteer for campaigns, and write letters to editors of newspapers and members of Congress.

Activist Corps

One of the newest ways in which DUers are involved is called the DU Activist Corps. Founded on July 1, 2005, the Activist Corps is a group of over 1,000 DUers who are committed to taking action on a certain issue whenever an official Activist Corps activity is posted.

The first Activist Corps action was posted on July 12; members wrote letters to the editors of local newspapers regarding Karl Rove's role in the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name. More than 70 letters were published in newspapers throughout the country. Other Corps activities have included signing onlinepetitions to U.S. Senators asking them to reject Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts, Jr., and to write letters of support Cindy Sheehan."

Ayep, I'd call that further evidence of leftist bias by omission. . .while the "National Spotlight" section pins it for the win in terms of bias by misrepresentation.

Now, that being said, I do consider the citation of Corsi's admission of wrongdoing to actually be a positive, in how it implies a certain superior regard for accountability on his part, and by extension, FR. And while I would agree with you 100% that "allegedly" is a shameful example of purely dishonest or deranged spin, the citation of FR's part in exposing the forgery and CBS' gross error I also consider to be favorable overall.

As to your last question, well. . .my family and friends have long since been taught better than to question, let alone "judge", where I spend my online hours.

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